A Dangerous Method (Review)

David Cronenberg allows actors’ methods to shine

Danger has been a factor in the recent
films of David Cronenberg, but the tension and anxiety has been focused
on the physical, the threat of bodily harm and the need to determine
where said harm would originate.

Would, as in the 2005 release A History of Violence,
the fatal treacherous blow be delivered by the ordinary father and
local shopkeeper hiding a dark and deadly past, full of buried secrets
and even more bodies? Would the danger arise from actions that run
counter to most basic characteristics of a Russian mob enforcer who
finds himself taking on the role of protector (2007’s Eastern Promises)?

Besides Cronenberg, the common thread in
each case is the onscreen instrument of danger, localized in the person
of Viggo Mortensen, the actor/Renaissance man who embodies a roguish
intensity that is always one step (in any direction) away from a fall
over the edge into the abyss.

And so it is fitting that Mortensen is
back for another round with Cronenberg, even though this time the danger
is not physical. Rather, it is about the methods employed to expose the
vulnerabilities of the mind and psyche. To further twist and undermine
our expectations, this devious duo seemingly deflects the threat of
danger onto Michael Fassbender, an actor who, like Mortensen, possesses
the same devilish charisma.

In A Dangerous Method, Fassbender
plays a developing Carl Jung whjo engages Sigmund Freud (Mortensen), the
godfather of modern psychoanalysis, as a mentor.

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Mortensen huffs and
puffs away on cigars and oozes his usual menace, but here it is
intellect-based: a dry probing and sparring that keeps Fassbender’s Jung
off-balance, in a field overloaded with fresh psychological bear-traps
waiting to be sprung. This is pure chess, a mental game that suddenly
jumps from the mind first into the emotional realm and then quite
vividly into the physical, sensual world.

With cat-like ferocity and grace, Keira
Knightley plays Sabina Spielrein, an unusual patient who by all accounts
was incurable. Oversexed and beyond the mores of society — but with a
beautiful razor-sharp mind of her own — Spielrein intrigues Jung. He
sees her sex and the drive it inspires in her, yet deeper still he spots
something of himself, a reflection of his own analytic theories which
contrasted with Freud’s and triggered his ambition and urge to break
free from his mentor/father figure. The triangular entanglements —
sexual, psychological and intellectual — are certainly mythic.

And so, obscured by all the smoke and
deflection, stands Knightley as the linchpin, the true danger this time.
As the center, she pushes herself and shows that, up to this point,
what audiences have come to expect from her youth and thin beauty has
been bound and corseted. Her Spielrein is a dark-eyed fury with a
whip-snapping sexual nature that has never been captured like this
before. Knightley is raw and naked, especially in scenes with Fassbender
(who is no stranger to such displays), but she leaves everyone else
exposed and vulnerable. Spielrein/Knightley seizes control. Spielrein
lasers in her mental focus, while Knightley sinks her teeth into every
available morsel in the frame and refuses to let go.

Knightley joins the likes of Elizabeth
Olsen and Kirsten Dunst, young actresses who during the past year found
methods to move themselves out of the pretty It-girl roles and into
stark and startling new challenges, the kind of character studies
usually reserved for older actresses or actors like Mortensen and
Fassbender.

What has likely made such turns easier to
understand and appreciate from male actors is that these roles are
sometimes born from the alter-ego dynamics between the actors and their
directors. Mortensen and Cronenberg could be viewed as merely the next
generation in the Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull,
et al). The elementally sympatico nature of that pairing exposes the
more forced deficiencies of Scorsese’s recent string with Leonardo
DiCaprio (Gangs of New York, The Departed, Shutter Island).

But it is encouraging to see A Dangerous Method, which may be one of the first attempts to create a Scorsese/De Niro-like bond between an actress
and director. If anyone could devise a method to bring that about, it
would be Cronenberg. And Knightley sure seems game enough to play along.
Grade: A